by Zane Grey
So Arlie froze her heart toward the Texan, all the more because he had touched her girlish imagination to sweet hidden dreams of which her innocence had been unnecessarily ashamed. He had spoken no love to her, nor had he implied it exactly. There had been times she had thought something more than friendship lay under his warm smile. But now she scourged herself for her folly, believed she had been unmaidenly, and set her heart to be like flint against him. She had been ready to give him what he had not wanted. Before she would let him guess it she would rather die, a thousand times rather, she told herself passionately.
She presently became aware that attention was being directed toward her and Jed and somebody who sat on the other side of her. Without looking round, she mentioned the fact in a low voice to her partner of the dance just finished. Jed looked up, and for the first time observed the man behind her. Instantly the gayety was sponged from his face.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“That man from Texas.”
Arlie felt the blood sting her cheeks. The musicians were just starting a waltz. She leaned slightly toward Jed, and said, in a low voice:
“Did you ask me to dance this with you?”
He had not, but he did now. He got to his feet, with shining eyes, and whirled her off. The girl did not look toward the Texan. Nevertheless, as they circled the room, she was constantly aware of him. Sitting there, with a smile on his strong face, apparently unperturbed, he gave no hint of the stern fact that he was circled by enemies, any one of whom might carry his death in a hip pocket. His gaze was serene, unabashed, even amused.
The young woman was irritably suspicious that he found her anger amusing, just as he seemed to find the dangerous position in which he was placed. Yet her resentment coexisted with a sympathy for him that would not down. She believed he was marked for death by a coterie of those present, chief of whom was the man smiling down into her face from half-shut, smouldering eyes.
Her heart was a flame of protest against their decree, all the more so because she held herself partly responsible for it. In a panic of repentance, she had told Dick of her confession to the ranger of the names of the Squaw Creek raiders, and France had warned his confederates. He had done this, not because he distrusted Fraser, but because he felt it was their due to get a chance to escape if they wanted to do so.
Always a creature of impulse, Arlie had repented her repentance when too late. Now she would have fought to save the Texan, but the horror of it was that she could not guess how the blow would fall. She tried to believe he was safe, at least until the week was up.
When Dick strolled across the floor, sat down beside Steve, and began casually to chat with him, she could have thanked the boy with tears. It was equivalent to a public declaration of his intentions. At least, the ranger was not friendless. One of the raiders was going to stand by him. Besides Dick, he might count on Howard; perhaps on others.
Jed was in high good humor. All along the line he seemed to be winning. Arlie had discarded this intruder from Texas and was showing herself very friendly to the cattleman. The suspicion of Fraser which he had disseminated was bearing fruit; and so, more potently, was the word the girl had dropped incautiously. He had only to wait in order to see his rival wiped out. So that, when Arlie put in her little plea, he felt it would not cost him anything to affect a large generosity.
“Let him go, Jed. He is discredited. Folks are all on their guard before him now. He can’t do any harm here. Dick says he is only waiting out his week because of your threat. Don’t make trouble. Let him sneak back home, like a whipped cur,” she begged.
“I don’t want any trouble with him, girl. All I ask is that he leave the valley. Let Dick arrange that, and I’ll give him a chance.”
She thanked him, with a look that said more than words.
It was two hours later, when she was waltzing with Jed again, that Arlie caught sight of a face that disturbed her greatly. It was a countenance disfigured by a ragged scar, running from the bridge of the nose. She had last seen it gazing into the window of Alec Howard’s cabin on a certain never-to-be-forgotten night.
“Who is that man—the one leaning against the door jamb, just behind Slim Leroy?” she asked.
“He’s a fellow that calls himself Johnson. His real name is Struve,” Jed answered carelessly.
“He’s the man that shot the Texas lieutenant,” she said.
“I dare say. He’s got a good reason for shooting him. The man broke out of the Arizona penitentiary, and Fraser came north to rearrest him. At least, that’s my guess. He wouldn’t have been here to-night if he hadn’t figured Fraser too sick to come. Watch him duck when he learns the ranger’s here.”
At the first opportunity Arlie signaled to Dick that she wanted to see him. Fraser, she observed, was no longer in the dancing rooms. Dick took her out from the hot room to the porch.
“Let’s walk a little, Dick. I want to tell you something.”
They sauntered toward the fine grove of pines that ran up the hillside back of the house.
“Did you notice that man with the scar, Dick?” she presently asked.
“Yes. I ain’t seen him before. Must be one of the Rabbit Run guys, I take it.”
“I’ve seen him. He’s the man that shot your friend. He was the man I shot at when he looked in the window.”
“Sure, Arlie?”
“Dead sure, Dick. He’s an escaped convict, and he has a grudge at your friend. He is afraid of him, too. Look out for Lieutenant Fraser to-night. Don’t let him wander around outside. If he does, there may be murder done.”
Even as she spoke, there came a sound from the wooded hillside—the sound of a stifled cry, followed by an imprecation and the heavy shuffling of feet.
“Listen, Dick!”
For an instant he listened. Then: “There’s trouble in the grove, and I’m not armed,” he cried.
“Never mind! Go—go!” she shrieked, pushing him forward.
For herself, she turned, and ran like a deer for the house.
Siegfried was sitting on the porch, whittling a stick.
“They—they’re killing Steve—in the grove,” she panted.
Without a word he rolled off, like a buffalo cow, toward the scene of action.
Arlie pushed into the house and called for Jed.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WOLF HOWLS
As Steve strolled out into the moonlight, he left behind him the monotonous thumping of heavy feet and the singsong voice of the caller.
“Birdie fly out,
Crow hop in,
Join all hands
And circle ag’in.”
came to him, in the high, strident voice of Lute Perkins. He took a deep breath of fresh, clean air, and looked about him. After the hot, dusty room, the grove, with its green foliage, through which the moonlight filtered, looked invitingly cool. He sauntered forward, climbed the hill up which the wooded patch straggled, and sat down, with his back to a pine.
Behind the valley rampart, he could see the dim, saw-toothed Teton peaks, looking like ghostly shapes in the moonlight. The night was peaceful. Faint and mellow came the sound of jovial romping from the house; otherwise, beneath the distant stars, a perfect stillness held.
How long he sat there, letting thoughts happen dreamily rather than producing them of gray matter, he did not know. A slight sound, the snapping of a twig, brought his mind to alertness without causing the slightest movement of his body.
His first thought was that, in accordance with dance etiquette in the ranch country, his revolver was in its holster under the seat of the trap in which they had driven over. Since his week was not up, he had expected no attack from Jed and his friends. As for the enemy, of whom Arlie had advised him, surely a public dance was the last place to tempt one who apparently
preferred to attack from cover. But his instinct was certain. He did not need to look round to know he was trapped.
“I’m unarmed. You’d better come round and shoot me from in front. It will look better at the inquest,” he said quietly.
“Don’t move. You’re surrounded,” a voice answered.
A rope snaked forward and descended over the ranger’s head, to be jerked tight, with a suddenness that sent a pain like a knife thrust through the wounded shoulder. The instinct for self-preservation was already at work in him. He fought his left arm free from the rope that pressed it to his side, and dived toward the figure at the end of the rope. Even as he plunged, he found time to be surprised that no revolver shot echoed through the night, and to know that the reason was because his enemies preferred to do their work in silence.
The man upon whom he leaped gave a startled oath and stumbled backward over a root.
Fraser, his hand already upon the man’s throat, went down too. Upon him charged men from all directions. In the shadows, they must have hampered each other, for the ranger, despite his wound—his shoulder was screaming with pain—got to his knees, and slowly from his knees to his feet, shaking the clinging bodies from him.
Wrenching his other hand from under the rope, he fought them back as a hurt grizzly does the wolf pack gathered for the kill. None but a very powerful man could ever have reached his feet. None less agile and sinewy than a panther could have beaten them back as at first he did. They fought in grim silence, yet the grove was full of the sounds of battle. The heavy breathing, the beat of shifting feet, the soft impact of flesh striking flesh, the thud of falling bodies—of these the air was vocal. Yet, save for the gasps of sudden pain, no man broke silence save once.
“The snake’ll get away yet!” a hoarse voice cried, not loudly, but with an emphasis that indicated strong conviction.
Impossible as it seemed, the ranger might have done it but for an accident. In the struggle, the rope had slipped to a point just below his knees. Fighting his way down the hill, foot by foot, the Texan felt the rope tighten. One of his attackers flung himself against his chest and he was tripped. The pack was on him again. Here there was more light, and though for a time the mass swayed back and forth, at last they hammered him down by main strength. He was bound hand and foot, and dragged back to the grove.
They faced their victim, panting deeply from their exertions. Fraser looked round upon the circle of distorted faces, and stopped at one. Seen now, with the fury and malignancy of its triumph painted upon it, the face was one to bring bad dreams.
The lieutenant, his chest still laboring heavily, racked with the torture of his torn shoulder, looked into that face out of the only calm eyes in the group.
“So it’s you, Struve?”
“Yes, it’s me—me and my friends.”
“I’ve been looking for you high and low.”
“Well, you’ve found me,” came the immediate exultant answer.
“I reckon I’m indebted to you for this.” Fraser moved his shoulder slightly.
“You’ll owe me a heap more than that before the night’s over.”
“Your intentions were good then, I expect. Being shy a trigger finger spoils a man’s aim.”
“Not always.”
“Didn’t like to risk another shot from Bald Knob, eh? Must be some discouraging to hit only once out of three times at three hundred yards, and a scratch at that.”
The convict swore. “I’ll not miss this time, Mr. Lieutenant.”
“You’d better not, or I’ll take you back to the penitentiary where I put you before.”
“You’ll never put another man there, you meddling spy,” Struve cried furiously.
“I’m not so sure of that. I know what you’ve got against me, but I should like to know what kick your friends have coming,” the ranger retorted.
“You may have mine, right off the reel, Mr. Fraser, or whatever you call yourself. You came into this valley with a lie on your lips. We played you for a friend, and you played us for suckers. All the time you was in a deal with the sheriff for you know what. I hate a spy like I do a rattlesnake.”
It was the man Yorky that spoke. Steve’s eyes met his.
“So I’m a spy, am I?”
“You know best.”
“Anyhow, you’re going to shoot me first, and find out afterward?”
“Wrong guess. We’re going to hang you.” Struve, unable to keep back longer his bitter spleen, hissed this at him.
“Yes, that’s about your size, Struve. You can crow loud now, when the odds are six to one, with the one unarmed and tied at that. But what I want to know is—are you playing fair with your friends? Have you told them that every man in to-night’s business will hang, sure as fate? Have you told them of those cowardly murders you did in Arizona and Texas? Have you told them that your life is forfeit, anyway? Do they know you’re trying to drag them into your troubles? No? You didn’t tell them that. I’m surprised at you, Struve.”
“My name’s Johnson.”
“Not in Arizona, it isn’t. Wolf Struve it is there, wanted for murder and other sundries.” He turned swiftly from him to his confederates. “You fools, you’re putting your heads into a noose. He’s in already, and wants you in, too. Test him. Throw the end of that rope over the limb, and stand back, while he pulls me up alone. He daren’t—not for his life, he daren’t. He knows that whoever pulls on that rope hangs himself as surely as he hangs me.”
The men looked at each other, and at Struve. Were they being led into trouble to pay this man’s scores off for him? Suspicion stirred uneasily in them.
“That’s right, too. Let Johnson pull him up,” Slim Leroy said sullenly.
“Sure. You’ve got more at stake than we have. It’s up to you, Johnson,” Yorky agreed.
“That’s right,” a third chipped in.
“We’ll all pull together, boys,” Struve insinuated. “It’s only a bluff of his. Don’t let him scare you off.”
“He ain’t scaring me off any,” declared Yorky. “He’s a spy, and he’s getting what is coming to him. But you’re a stranger too, Johnson. I don’t trust you any—not any farther than I can see you, my friend. I’ll stand for being an aider and abettor, but I reckon if there’s any hanging to be done you’ll have to be the sheriff,” replied Yorky stiffly.
Struve turned his sinister face on one and another of them. His lips were drawn back, so that the wolfish teeth gleamed in the moonlight. He felt himself being driven into a trap, from which there was no escape. He dared not let Fraser go with his life, for he knew that, sooner or later, the ranger would run him to earth, and drag him back to the punishment that was awaiting him in the South. Nor did he want to shoulder the responsibility of murdering this man before five witnesses.
Came the sound of running footsteps.
“What’s that?” asked Slim nervously.
“Where are you, Steve?” called a voice.
“Here,” the ranger shouted back.
A moment later Dick France burst into the group. “What’s doing?” he panted.
The ranger laughed hardily. “Nothing, Dick. Nothing at all. Some of the boys had notions of a necktie party, but they’re a little shy of sand. Have you met Mr. Struve, Dick? I know you’re acquainted with the others, Mr. Struve is from Yuma. An old friend of mine. Fact is, I induced him to locate at Yuma.”
Dick caught at the rope, but Yorky flung him roughly back.
“This ain’t your put in, France,” he said. “It’s up to Johnson.” And to the latter: “Get busy, if you’re going to.”
“He’s a spy on you-all, just the same as he is on me,” blurted the convict.
“That’s a lie, Struve,” pronounced the lieutenant evenly. “I’m going to take you back with me, but I’ve got no
thing against these men. I want to announce right now, no matter who tells a different story, that I haven’t lost any Squaw Creek raiders and I’m not hunting any.”
“You hear? He came into this valley after me.”
“Wrong again, Struve. I didn’t know you were here. But I know now, and I serve notice that I’m going to take you back with me, dead or alive. That’s what I’m paid for, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
It was amazing to hear this man, with a rope round his neck, announce calmly what he was going to do to the man who had only to pull that rope to send him into eternity. The very audacity of it had its effect.
Slim spoke up. “I don’t reckon we better go any farther with this thing, Yorky.”
“No, I don’t reckon you had,” cut in Dick sharply. “I’ll not stand for it.”
Again the footsteps of a running man reached them. It was Siegfried. He plunged into the group like a wild bull, shook the hair out of his eyes, and planted himself beside Fraser. With one backward buffet of his great arm he sent Johnson heels over head. He caught Yorky by the shoulders, strong man though the latter was, and shook him till his teeth rattled, after which he flung him reeling a dozen yards to the ground. The Norwegian was reaching for Dick when Fraser stopped him.
“That’s enough of a clean-up right now, Sig. Dick butted in like you to help me,” he explained.
“The durned coyotes!” roared the big Norseman furiously, leaping at Leroy and tossing him over his head as an enraged bull does. He turned upon the other three, shaking his tangled mane, but they were already in flight.
